Santa Cruz, CA has banned it for at least the 7 years I've been here... Jamba Juice serves in paper cups instead. I see no practical difference between the paper and the styrofoam (except I hate the handfeel of styrofoam).
It seems like companies have the processes in place to not use styrofoam if compelled to.
I'm not sure if that's an issue. If you get a Tim Horton's tea in a paper cup, it's still scalding hot even after 10 mins (and it tastes like piss, so I wouldn't recommend it BTW). If you want your drink to be hot 2 hours later I'm not sure a styrofoam cup is going to do much better. You probably want to get them to put your drink into a travel mug.
Coffee places usually give you cardboard sleeves where your palm goes, that help with insulation.
If your hand is big enough and the cup is light enough you can support bottom of it with your pinky and the top of it with your thumb while horizontally balancing it with the rest of your fingers, you have three-finger redundancy if your coffee is too hot.
The problem with the latter approach that little finger supports most of the weight of the cup and I can't hold more than a medium coffee.
> Should be illegal based solely on the sound it makes when it rubs together.
Lots of folks have been discussing, playing with (exploiting?), and researching [ASMR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_re...) over the last few years. However, I've yet to see any discussion about the possibility of a connection between ASMR and [misophonia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misophonia). I experience both (your comment caused me to shudder) and have a hunch that they form a duality or, if the distinction isn't that clear, are related.
Your car probably has it (behind the bumper cover). Helmets have it. Your home may have it. It's light, it insulates, it absorbs the energy of impact (once at least).
I don't know if there are effective, inexpensive substitutes for those uses.
A complete idealist in me wishes that had we used appropriate material in the right places the world would have been much better place.
Using styrofoam in helmets, car bumpers and refrigerators is a completely legitimate use case as it solves more problems than it creates, but using styrofoam in cups is just such a complete waste that only gives someone a tiny bit of convenience.
For some things, it's the best material. I don't think most reasonable people would say we should ban styrofoam when it's the best material in a safety application.
For others, like food containers, it's almost purely for cost reasons when other solutions exist.
I've seen popcorn used instead of styrofoam for packing fragile thing nhsbfor ahipping. However the idea of putting a bucket of popcorn on my head to ride a bike doesn't seem that good.
That puts us one step closer to eliminating styrofoam in bicycle helmets. It may be that there are other very good or better materials that are currently too expensive, but whose prices could be brought down by widespread adoption.
I'd be surprised. It's used in motorcycle helmets as well and there's definitely a market for pretty pricey motorcycle helmets if you could claim they were better in any marginal way.
"An ordinance passed last year requires all food and beverages prepared for dine-in or take-out to be placed in reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging.
That includes plates, serving boats and to-go containers -- cups and bowls have until April 22, 2017 to continue using non-recyclable plastic-lined paper.
The ordinance includes all restaurants, food trucks, grocery store delis and other mobile or seasonal vendors."
I don't know if it's banned or just expensive where I live, but I haven't seen a styrofoam cup, container or packaging for a very long time.
Everything is cardboard and paper wrappers.
You can still by styrofoam disposable cups at the supermarket though, so maybe it's just a consumer based thing - consumers associate styrofoam packaging with cheap/nasty food.
can't comment on why styrofoam is not banned, but paper doesn't break down as easy on landfills as you would expect, due compaction and lack of oxygen for microorganisms to exist.
It is a lot cleaner to burn, though. I dunno why we don't make better use of burnable waste materials to generate electricity, rather than sticking them in landfills. Emissions-wise, it is no more dirty than burning coal or other biomass products that we are already utilizing (I've seen the emissions numbers for a plant that once burned creosote-treated wood products, and has now switched to whole-tree chips). Storing a shovel-full of ash in the landfill is more efficient than storing the uncombusted products.
Even sitting in a landfill paper still poses way fewer risks than styrofoam, as soon as it gets exposed to air it starts to break down, fish and birds don't usually eat it and when they do, paper doesn't stay in their guts forever.
Less nasty crap in our landfills, and less plastics in our food and hot drinks, too.